“I’m thankful to be in a free country”
In a new Reason magazine feature, Jacob Sullum shares his poignant experience adopting his two daughters from China and spotlights the tyrannical roots of China’s international adoption program:
As I gradually realized, the truth about Chinese adoption is more complicated than the conventional story about Westerners who magnanimously take in China’s unwanted girls. It’s not much of an exaggeration to say these girls are “unwanted” only because the Chinese government has made them so. Although the government’s oppressive, family-destroying policies have had the incidental benefit of bringing joy to the lives of adoptive parents in the U.S. and elsewhere, it will be a great victory for liberty when such heartwarming stories stop appearing on newsstands and bookshelves. These adoptions would not be occurring if the Chinese government did not try to dictate the most basic and intimate of life’s decisions.
Sullum reflects on the monstrous impact of China’s population control policies and the plight of the “missing” girls:
…China is experiencing a serious gender imbalance. The government acknowledges this problem, although it does not concede that its population policy has anything to do with it. “According to the fifth national census conducted in 2000,” the government-operated China Daily reported in 2004, around the time we adopted Mei, “the ratio of newborn males per 100 females in China has reached 119.2, much higher than the normal level of between 103 [and] 107.” The official explanation: “Gender discrimination against females is quite common in many rural and underdeveloped areas, which has led to artificial choice of newborn babies’ gender by ultrasonic wave. This has reduced the number of female newborn babies.”
According to United Nations development official Khalid Malik, the newborn gender gap could result in something like 60 million “missing” females by the end of the decade, which amounts to about 2 million per year in the three decades since the Chinese government began enforcing population controls. The International Planned Parenthood Federation estimates that 7 million abortions are performed in China each year and that 70 percent of the aborted fetuses are female. That’s 4.9 million girls who are not born, vs. 2.1 million boys, implying an annual difference of 2.8 million. Assuming Planned Parenthood’s estimate is in the right ballpark, it seems that sex-selective abortions are enough on their own to explain China’s gender imbalance.
Sullum’s last line on the adoption of his youngest daughter: “As grateful as I am for the opportunity to see Mei every day and watch her grow up, I realize that in a better world we never would have met.”
***
Interestingly, as Sullum notes in his piece, there are far more domestic adoptions of Chinese girls than you might think. He cites a report that more than 56,000 officially recognized domestic adoptions took place in China in 2000. USA Today reported this week that foreign adoptions peaked in 2005 and fell this year, partly due to tighter restrictions on Americans and others adopting and partly due to a surge in in-country adoptions. Those figures don’t include millions of informal adoptions. Still, as Sullum notes, these informally adopted children “are not eligible for a hukou, the residence permit that allows access to school and other benefits. In addition to the hardships associated with lack of a hukou and the expense of raising another child, couples who adopt informally risk penalties for skirting limits on family size.”
***
I read Sullum’s piece last night with my own 7-year-old daughter looking over my shoulder. She liked looking at the accompanying photos of one of Sullum’s beautiful daughters. I explained how and why so many Chinese girls are adopted and come to America. Both she and my son have classmates who were adopted from China. Afterward, she made another leaf for our Thanksgiving tree. Completely unprompted and out of the blue, this is what she wrote:
Kids say the darnedest things.
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Same here little one.
Happy Thanksgiving
This is bad on so many levels, but in the worst case scenario China my be building an army for tomorrow. Lots of “surplus” boys would come in handy for that.
For today, Happy Holiday to all that are free enough to be reading this.
Shades of Art Linkletter …
Of course, it takes great, well-grounded parents to produce great, well-grounded children … I am sure this will be a proud moment in the scrapbook for later memories Michelle … definitely something to cherish … enjoy them as they grow up way too fast …
Michelle … here’s wishing you and your family a glorious Thanksgiving Day …
My brother-in-law & his wife (she’s Chinese,born here) adopted a Chinese baby girl,she’s now a smart,charming & funny 10 year old.
Wise beyond her years!
How does old saying go?
Like Mother, like daughter.
So, who’s cooking the turkey today?
Happy Thanksgiving!
Protect that little one from the stealth messages of the MSM, Michelle - hopefully she’ll hold that feeling in her heart all her life.
Funny, too - yesterday I was going to say the same thing on the “gripe” thread that your daughter did, but figured it was too obvious. But an expression of thanks like that can never be too obvious, can it?
Thank you for sharing that.Like Zorro said so eloquently
“Like Mother,Like Daughter.”
Happy Turkey day
Celebrate your politicians, most of them are turkeys but we can still say what we think of them.
Kids frequently cut to the chase. You are raising a very wise child.
Thank God we live in the US. Thank God my daughters were born here. Too bad there are so many that were born in the US and don’t appreicate the freedoms or those who ensure their freedoms.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. God bless us everyone.
The Chinese leaders, along with the capitalists that support them, are only making these matters worse.
Ah, abortion - that great mass killer of women, whose very existence depends on feminists.
Also of note, an old professor of mine wrote a book on the security implications of China’s one child policy. Check it out here: http://www.amazon.com/Bare-Branches-Implications-Population-International/dp/0262083256/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195748872&sr=8-2
Interesting stuff indeed.
The “one child per family” rule is actually quite sensible - if they hadn’t limited population growth they wouldn’t have their current economy (there would be millions more of impoverished peasants).
The trouble is that girls are treated as inferiors in their culture, therefore they are more likely to be aborted or given up for adoption - with the result being that many Chinese men will not be able to find a wife in the future. That does not abode well for social cohesion.
As I am siting here reading, my twenty-something daughter it napping next to me on the sofa (maybe visions of turkey drumsticks dancing in her head) and I feel as blessed as one can be. She was an Army brat and has enjoyed Thanksgiving in Germany, England, Turkey and Egypt along the way. We always invited our German friends to join us on Thanksgiving during our years living there and they were always impressed by this American tradition. It made me feel proud to be an American and share this special day.
Michele, your daughter has obviously already felt that special thrill of being a free American. Enjoy the heck out of her (teenage years are looming). You raised her right and she will give you cause to celebrate this day for rest of time.
Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving.
As Mark Steyn has pointed out, China will get old before it gets rich. And Russia will become non-existent before it gets rich — reliable estimates are that by the middle of the next decade, the majority in Russia’s military will be Muslim. Good luck on that.
Does that mean these two states are becoming less dangerous? No, it means they are becoming more dangerous than you can imagine, the lunatic antics of Russia’s Rootin’ Tootin’ Putin (you only thought you missed Stalin) being but a glimmer of what is to come.
Yes, I am grateful to live in America, which is still mostly free most of the time. But like an intense love affair that one knows is doomed, the enjoyment is increasingly curtailed.
Now where would that little Malkin girl have gotten those kind of values?
Happy Thanksgiving, Michelle, to you and your family. Place here smells of pumpkin pie and turkey. Hope everyone has a great day. I’ve had the opportunity to visit various countries over the years, including Asia. It makes you even more grateful to be in the USA. It also makes you conscious of our own eroding freedoms; especially when you see very little freedom with other societies.
I’m thankful to find so many with the same conservative beliefs that I have. That wasn’t so easy before the death of the Fairness Doctrine and the Internet.
Think about it.
If a 7 year old can understand what it means to live in a free country, why can’t our politicians?
Happy thanksgiving everyone.
With the US population exploding and crunch time coming in many areas of natural resources, we’ll have to make some hard choices before you know it ourselves.
Thank you for sharing Michelle. We are also thankful to live in a free country too. Obviously someone as been responsible for some good parenting in the Malkin family, keep up the good work. Happy Thanksgiving everyone Boomer is checking off to spend the rest of today with his family and count our blessings.
I wouldn’t trade my daughters for the universe!
Its immoral for parents to decide by abortion or give away for adoption, the gender of their child.
But then how do we expect individual morals from a communist country that does not even recognize the importance of our type of morals system.
And this is the type of morals we’re expected to accept in our liberal controlled schools for the future of American children?
Congratulations, Alphonse - you are the office Turkey Troll of michellemalkin.com
My wife works today. Thanksgiving will be tomorrow. She is a pediatric nurse and is dealing with a young child who is going to die; maybe today. I thank God for the health of my children, for the health care system we have here in America. Nothing else comes close. Hold them close and count blessings.
tgears, I wish your wife well, and understand having Thanksgiving tomorrow. I’ve worked in respiratory peds myself and understand how it goes. When a child dies, it never is easy to take. You stop, sigh, say a quick silent prayer and then answer the high pressure alarm down the hall (she’ll know what I mean). But, you never forget them. But, on the upside, I’ve never known more loving kids who live life to its fullest each day, as kids on ventilators and tracheostomies. That’s the part you never forget. God, in his wisdom, takes care of them.
Michelle Malkin,
Thanks for all that you do. You are a treasure. I enjoy listening to you on tv.
Happy Thanksgiving.
The chicoms could change their policy of discriminating against females by opening a hunting season for males (bucks) and only giving permits for females in heavily populated or agricultural areas (for instance if a female is caught or is suspected of chewing on the leaves of young crops).
Or better yet, they could open hunting season year round on the the short fat rotund murderers that RULE that pitiful excuse for a country.
Why do these losers have most favored nation trading status. It’s time to bomb them back to the stone age with nod of indifference, and a heavy fine with jail time for any American corporation that does business with them. And while we are at it. Let’s make the list complete with the multitude of other nations that abuse American chivalry including so called allies. If we sacrifice for our principles now, we won’t have to sacrifice with our sons and daughters lives later.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. You were quite right to bring up the subject of China’s still reigning communism. It made me think of something: this is a country that was victim of the Japanese attacks on their country in the 1930s, and the Rape of Nanking in 1937. Many people were murdered when the Japanese attacked that part of the country back then, and now the commies there are daring to make the situation worse by slaughtering their population through the one-child law they’ve been maintaining for many years now, possibly since the 1950s? That’s surely the single most obscene thing about their communist dictations.
The subject of China’s communist government imposing self-suicide upon the country is something that definitely needs to be addressed, as often as possible day after day. It’s high time already that we lobby our politicians to stop doing business with China’s commies until they disband and most importantly of all, until they abolish the one-child law and stop with their other blatant human rights abuses. I think that if the one-child law were abolished, that would be the most important step towards ending communism in China.
Until then, every Chinese girl who can be saved through adoption, if needed, should be taken in by people in America and other democratic countries who care. I heard on CBS a year ago that China was going to start offering benefits to couples to have girls, but I have no idea if they’ve actually followed through honestly on that proposal.
Happy Thanksgiving, Michelle. I am thankful everyday for being born in the land of liberty, and thankful for having voices like Michelle that defend it. Most of all, Happy Thanksgiving to our troops. They make it all possible.
I wish I lived in a free country. Instead I live in a relatively free country. My assets are routinely seized by the Federal Government and given to other people. The only real freedom of religion belongs to those terrorists who follow the god of terrorism: Allah. Government schools brainwash and corrupt our youth. Unreasonable demands for identification are made on legal American citizens who wish to travel. Every email, phone call and fax is monitored by the US Government’s Echelon system. Data on every sale and financial transaction is captured and sold in order to promote or prevent people from being able to secure the necessities of life. Only the wealthy and the poor have security in Health Care. We the people are being forced to pay for the costs of accommodating the wacko-Goreists’ global warming fraud. We have a military that is not allowed to win the wars they fight. We tolerate perverted cities such as San Francisco to defile places of worship, evict the US military from their boundaries then welcome illegal aliens, drug addicts, transvestites, sodomites and other reprobates into their city. eminent domain has been used by government to seize private property and give that property to corporations that are expected to generate more tax revenue. Communities across the land have lost the right to do what they will with their property - can’t cut that freakin’ tree down even though it’s yours!
I could go on. The only way to get momentum to revolt against oppression is to make more people aware that we don’t live in a free country. We live in a “Free-er” country… but that’s not good enough for me.
My cousin and her husband have three children by birth, and three adopted children from China. All are girls, all are wonderful, sweet human beings, and all three are immensely grateful to be here and love their parents very much.
Bless her little heart, and AMEN.
Bruce,
For Pete’s sake, you took something that was meant to be refreshing and pleasant, and you ruined it. Check that: you tried to ruin it. You failed to do so, though, because not even your mindless drivel could ruin such plain, simple, innocent truth.
Look, I don’t like my income being taxed to support welfare addicts any more than you do, but several of the things you said weren’t true.
Bologna.
Public schools may have a liberal slant, but if you’re any kind of parent you more than counteract their slant with the example you set. My guess is that your kids will grow up to hold similar political positions to your own. Hell, my father is almost liberal compared to me, and I was publicly educated. I even enlisted in the Marine Corps, horror of horrors.
Bologna.
Such data is no doubt captured, but you are misleading others when you state that it is being compiled with the express purpose of preventing people from being able to secure the necessities of life.
Those who plan and budget for health care needs in a responsible manner are just fine, too. One of the huge lies of the “health insurance crisis” which we are currently experiencing via the media is that people can’t afford health insurance. How many of the people who can’t buy health insurance have cable/sat TV? Cell phones? A car payment? Internet service? Eat out more than once in awhile? Additionally, insurance is all about risk and risk acceptance. Many young men and women feel that their low risk of facing serious health problems does not make the expense of health insurance a worthwhile investment, so they CHOOSE not to buy it and get lumped in with the millions of Americans who “can’t” get health insurance. Lots of folks just don’t feel they need it, or at least gamble that they WON’T need it, until they think about having children.
Lighten up. At least take Thanksgiving Day to appreciate the many blessings we DO have. Then you can spend the other 364 days crusading to put right what once went wrong.
He missed the “stop before you gripe” thread. sheesh, Whiner.
ajmontana,
Apparently!
Harry Thanksgiving everyone!
Michelle’s kid has it right. We should all remember that to be here in America is a blessing all by itself. That’s why we have 20-25 million uninvited guests this holiday season. Being illegal in America sure beats being legal in Mexico:)
Then there is this:
What would those “hard choices” be, and who would be making these choices?
I suspect that Alphonse would like to see deportations to Israel more than Mexico, don’t you? I think he means “hard choices” like who’s healthy enough for slave labor, and who goes to the “de-lousing” right away.
Thank God idiots like him are in the very small minority here in America.
Harry Thanksgiving isn’t what I meant, but that’s pretty accidentally funny!
Have a Happy and Harry Thanksgiving, hahaha!
Hairy Thanksgiving…..see hot air furr ball story…ew.
Children see things with the simplistic view of “it is what it is” and never cease to bring complicated adult viewpoints into total clarity. I’ve mulled over problems at times only to have a 7 yr. old set me straight! Thank you Michelle for sharing your children’s stories. I’m betting this little one grows up to be an author just like her mother.
Well, God help me for playing devil’s advocate here and coming ever-so-slightly to Bruce’s defense, because I do think a fair number of the things he said were over-the-top. Additionally, it’s probably poor form to go off on one’s own country specifically in a thread presumably begun with the intention of initiating a discussion about giving thanks.
However, before we beat up on poor Bruce too harshy, the simple fact remains that many of the things he brings up do, in fact, resonate to most conservatives.
A liberal slant in public education? No, here I think Bruce is right to call it brainwashing. With all due respect, a “slight liberal slant” is an almost comical understatement - have you been hearing what’s being taught in the schools, espcially in the higher population/urban areas? Bruce is decidedly more right than wrong by any objective measure; brainwashing is a not inappropriate term.
.
Strongly worded, and somewhat insensitive to certain groups to be sure,but I think most here would pretty much agree with Bruce’s observations if they were worded a bit more delicately.
He’s right again, and no apologies on form, here. There can be no discussion about that one. This is a simple fact for almost all of us.
As for the freedom of religion, certainly the allusion to terrorists is an unfortunate one, but it is true that if you’re a Christian, the hard-left just hates you and won’t feel satisfied until you have to carry your own cross, which you better do in the privacy of your own home lest you offend some angry secularist. Bruce here again has not expressed the idea in the most diplomatic terms, but his grievence certainly has merit.
Over the top? Yes. Right thread for the expression of those views? Probably not - Bruce is giving us tough love nobody wants to hear right now. But he’s also expressing views most passion conservatives agree with, so let’s not crush his voice too loudly. There may come a time soon when we need every voice we can muster.
Have a great weekend.
The main problem isn’t what the Chinese are doing. Its the Result. With the US developing anti ICBM Weapons for it’s self and allies its only a matter of time till that System is global. Spy’s still are used around the globe afterall.
The problem is when that happens China has 17 Million Men with no Future ready to put into Uniform. The problem is Europe grows Weaker, the US more fragmented. One need only look at Regional Politics and websites to see that fact. Japan is being hit hard on its population, and Russia’s Future may lay with China.
Unless Putin’s Policies take effect, or Russian Ethnic dominated areas of former Soviet Republics rebel and join Russia.
The main problem is there are too many differances, too many Nations, and too many Systems, that complicate the Resource System and make it seem with have less than we do. Of course sad fact of the matter is Globalization won’t solve this. A game of King of the Hill is what shall happen in all likelyhood.